The Warp That Guides Us
by Thefallenheart
Summary: It's about some people living on a Space Hulk.
1. Chapter 1

Technically it was a Space Hulk; an omen of woe and despair to those who ploughed the seas of night. Slipping between the real and the unreal like some sort of colossal spectre. It had once been the ship named _Claw of Mars_. It had once been an Omnissiah class ship, a vessel of magnificence with a history of glory and fire. It had once been the flagship of a fleet of the Cult Mechanicus. And to seven and a half thousand people it was now home.

Where the people who now inhabited the now misshapen Hulk had originated was a mystery even to themselves, to most of the Imperium they are just a tribe of humanity that they occasionally sold food to or hired as mercenaries. To some they were considered saviours and to many they were heretics of the highest order.

The currents were shifting again. Simon could feel them. The warp was about them and he could hear the change in its song. Blessed be the currents of the warp. Last time they had been blown of course they had appeared on the edge of the Cadia system less than a week before another chaos incursion. It had been glorious. The big men in the thick black armour had been fun to play with and their weapons hung from the walls as trophies.

Simon was of average build for the Warpdrifters, as they were called, standing at about five foot six and being sturdy in stature. He had hair that was a sort of light brownish gingery colour, turquoise eyes, pale skin with a very slight hint of blue, was reckoned by ground-worlders as looking about twenty and was currently wearing a pair of dungarees a necklace of ork teeth and a very fresh scar running from the left side of his forehead to the right side of his chin. It was being held shut with thin nylon wire. The scar had been given to him by the previous owner of a couple of those teeth. His tattoos were the curly triangular green designs of House Serpent. The cave like corridors were filled with the humming expectation and hope of more glory as other Warpdrifters felt the change in the currents. Simon made his way along the cave-like corridors and passageways up to the Great Hall in the centre of the ship.

The Great Hall was aptly named. The banner of the thirteen great houses hung from it's ceiling and in its centre was a raised dais that the High Chief used to make announcements. The High Chief was standing there now his long grey beard tied into strings with pieces of polished glass and other small shiny objects tied to the ends. He was possibly the oldest member of the Warpdrifters being over one hundred as reckoned by ground-worlders. That was old. His blue spirally tattoos declared him to belong to House Albatross, famed for the fortune it brought those who followed them. Though he leant on a long wooden staff for support and had to use a microphone to be heard his predatory yellow eyes had lost none of their sharpness.

Around the edges of the crowd could be seen members of the Eldar delegation from craftworld Yme-Lock. They were nice enough in a distant way once you got to know them, if a bit stiff and rigid. Was it them who had caused the shift in direction? Wouldn't be the first time the Eldar had bought their services. Not to long ago some bigwig farseer from Ulthewe had sent them on a mission to a crone world to rescue some Eldar, decedents of the Eldar who lived there before The Fall. That had been fun, Simon remembered fondly. He had just been declared probably old enough to be a man and that had been his first mission. They had rescued more than four thousand Eldar and had taken them straight to Beil-Tan. Much glory was won that day and the party that had been thrown on their arrival was superb. Say what you will but the Eldar could show real honour to those who earn it. Unlike the wretched Imperium. Was that where they were going again? Wonder what the festivities on Yme-Lock would be like? It would no doubt involve wine of some sort. They seemed the sort that would drink wine. Not that there was anything wrong with wine in and of itself but in Simons opinion it was probably only grown on planets that hadn't heard of Cider.

'No doubt you have all felt the shifting of direction. Well here is the reason why; these fine folk, come on give us a wave,' Surprisingly it did get a half hearted hesitant wave 'have asked if we would go smash up a Tomb-World. Anyone here gone Necron Bashing before?'

Simon saw a great many hand raise, usually from people with lots of scars and occasionally discoloured vat-grown replacement limbs.

"Now I am asking for volunteers and I will be disappointed if I see a hand go down." Not a single appendage descended and many more rose. It did not do to disappoint the High Chief. "You make an old chief proud. No leader anywhere could ask for a more honourable and reliable people to lead. I just wish I was going with you, but the doctors keep telling me I am getting a bit old." This got a slight chuckle from the audience. "I will not keep you, I'm sure you have better things to do than listen to an old man. We fall to the Real in about two days, so get ready." And High Chief stepped down from the stand, with the aid of two of his daughters. Age was weighing heavily on his shoulders now, Simon could remember him when he walked unaided and it seemed like only a moment ago. But no time for dawdling and depressing thoughts, in two days they would be hunting metal things and glory would not find him wanting.

Just as everyone was milling around the Great Hall and beginning to leave Simon caught sight of someone who he recognised. 'All right, Beefy!'

The human identified as 'Beefy' turned round. This took some time. You don't get a name like beefy for being a weed. In appearance Beefy was tall for a warp-drifter standing at just over six foot and looked like he had some Ogyrn in his lineage. He had been on that mission to the Deamon World and had, in full view of everyone, ripped a Khrone Champions head clean off, that earned him a reputation for not being someone you would want to mess about. Currently he was wearing overalls with patches on the knees, and hair and beard clipped short all around. His parents had seen fit to give him the name Timenty Uksfod Vost.

'All right, axe face! Where the hell have you been hiding?'

'Say what?'

'Me and Lisity have been looking for you for days.'

'I just went for a stroll down the other end of the hulk, just to see how things are doing, you know.'

'Lisity really missed you, you know.' Said Timenty with a big broad grin. 'I think she was wanting you to invite her over to where ever your little hideaway is.' the grin acutely got a little broader if that was possible.

'Will you knock that off. I know for a fact that she is not sweet for me because Derek is courting her and that's the end of it.'

'Ha Ha Ha!' Beefy was one of those people with the big laughter, the sort that rattles rafters and has the carrying power of an Armoggedon Class Cruiser. 'That's why I've been trying to look for you! She found him getting more than friendly with one of the Geller Field polishers and kneed him in the bollocks. It was so funny that it brought tears to my eyes. And it definitely brought tears to his.

'That is the best news I have had all day. So good in fact that I think I we should celebrate it with a bloody huge drink. To The Smiling Slann!'

'No, axe head. You need to go smarten up and ask Lisity out to a posh meal and Warp alone knows where you are going to get flowers from.'

'That's all you know. Thankfully _some_ of us use our heads for thinking and I have some stored in a stasis box.'

If the grin had been any bigger the top of his head would have fallen off. 'I knew it! I knew you had a thing for her! Old Jimbob owes me a new set of knuckle-dusters. Been planning this for a while then I see. So much for "she's just a friend".'

'Oh come on. No one believed that heap of bullshit. As if I was just going to think of her as "just a friend" when she is so damn beautiful. Speaking of which, do you have any idea where she is, exactly?'


	2. Chapter 2

"Last time I saw her she was adding some words to The Hall of Grudges. But I doubt that she is still there." Then there was that bloody grin again accompanied with a conspiratorial nudge to the ribs with the elbow which, this being Beefy, was likely to leave a bruise. "A bit anxious to find her before anyone else does, ey?"

"Not really. I know she will choose me." Replied Simon with a broad grin of his own. Made all the more impressive by the scar.

"And what makes you so sure of that, Axe Face?"

"Because I am just so bloody awesome, that's why. Now if you will excuse me I have to go and make a visit to The Hall of Grudges."

As soon as he was around the corner and he judged himself out of earshot of Timenty Simon broke into a dead run. This was a good day he thought as the floor sped under him. He had been sorry to hear when she had started to respond to Dereks attempts at courtship. Of course he had known her since, well, forever really but had never made any move on her because he had not realised that she was so beautiful. It was only when he had seen her with Derek and disapproved most emphatically that he had realised that these feelings were, in actual fact, real. He had nearly lost her to someone undeserving. That mistake would not be repeated. But that was life wasn't it, he mused as he sped around a sudden corner, you do not realise the value of something until it is almost lost. Just as you never feel so alive unless you are going axe to axe with an ork, as if your life is rationed by the universe and if it looks like it is about to end, then to hell with meagre scraps. He felt like that now. His heart was beating faster, the colours seemed more colourful, and sounds seemed more textured. This is what it meant to be alive.

It was at this moment that the wall and floor attempted to exchange places, and then the wall with the ceiling. That was the thing about living on a space hulk; down was such a matter of opinion and the sham gravity enjoyed its harlequin random dance.

Simon landed with only a momentary break in his balanced stride. The Warpdrifters having lived with fickle gravity from the cradle develop a level of agility that would shame a cat. There were really only three places on the Hulk that had a stable definition of the word down and they were The Hall of Grudges, The Great Hall and The Houses of Healing. Everywhere else just had to put up with footprints on what were temporarily the walls. It did make having a bath a bit tricky, though.

After about an hour of winding corridors and another change in the direction his feet were pointing he made it to the Hall of Grudges. It was not as big as the caver-like expanse of The Great Hall but it was pretty grand never the less and whereas the size of the Great Hall was made of the grandeur of the house banners and the emblems of allies The Hall of Grudges was grand in human terms. All over it were words written of hate so that all could see them, all the scorn and pent up loathing that could all so often lead to bloodshed was written down here. And here it would stay for a one score years before it got washed off. There were no dirty, shameful secrets on the Warpdrifter.

And she was standing there, standing regal and proud like the purest Angel of ancient legends. It was enough to make his heart skip a beat. She had her back to him and was intent and focused on the words in front of her. Her hair spilt down to her shoulders in a cascade of unblemished copper. She must have heard him approaching or maybe it was the intensity of his stare but something made her turn around. Her face bore the black and white interwoven pattern of House Magpie.

"Hello Simon." She said in her joyful almost musical voice.

"Hello Lisity, how are you?"

"Not too bad I guess. A little angry I suppose, but not too bad. Were you in the Great Hall before?" She asked.

"Oh, erm, yes. Yes I was."

"What was it all about? I was writing down a serious Grudge."

"Well, we are going to a Tomb-World to do some Necron bashing in a couple of days." Replied Simon trying to avoid her eyes.

"Are you going?" it was a simple question.

"Yes."

"But you could be killed!" she said. "These aren't stupid orks this time. These are the Soulless Ones. The servants of the Yngir themselves!"

"I have no intention of dying, and if I had to it would be such an end as to make every man of the Warpdrifter green with envy." He said this with a grin to show that it was meant in jest. "But before I am taken by the grave I would very much like to ask you out to diner."

"What?" there was a reddening of the ears to the point where they almost blended in with her hair.

"May I invite you for dinner? Just the two of us?" This was it. One of those moments where the universe hits an unmoveable object, it either goes one way or it goes the other. Like going head to head with a Khroneite, one of you is going to be dead by the end of it. Life should be made of such simplicity, Simon often thought.

"Y-yes. Yes of course. Erm, where were you thinking of?"

"Erm, I was thinking of The Happy Tree near the pointy end." Simon knew, after much extremely subtle research, that this was Lisitys favourite place to eat. The reason for this was that the owner of the establishment had somehow managed to acquire a huge stash of cinnamon and chocolate.

"Yes, of course." And then there was a smile as bright as a star and just as warm. "At about tea-time?"

"Of course. Erm, see you there then." Simon hurried away as quickly as decency allowed. He was having trouble holding back the blush that had started in his toes and had been working its way upwards since he saw her, and with his almost albino skin it was extremely noticeable. It was at this time as he began his sauntering dazed walk away from the Hall of Grudges he remembered what he was doing today. He was going to play a game of Thudball. That was always good for a laugh.

Thudball is a game that is played on no other world anywhere, ever. And for good reason. The 'ball' if such it can be called is a sort of leather sack filled with bits of rubber and lead pellets and weighs, in a 1 gravity environment, about half a hundred-weight (Note for young people and Americans; this means about 25kg). The idea is to get it from one side of the pitch to the other and place it in a metal hoop. There can be any number of people playing provided there are the same number on either team. The only real concessions to safety are the rules 'no kicking your opponent in the nadgers' and 'no being a malicious little bastard'. The maliciousness is determined by the ref whose decision is final and is aloud to hit you with a cattle prod if you argue with him.

And this is why the Eldar think that the Warpdrifters are slightly mad. You would have to be mad, they say, to even consider playing a meat-grinder of a game like that.

The Thud pitch was a very large space on the Hulk but the roof was not very tall. It was one of the places where the gravity, whilst not being stable, was extremely predictable. it was either this way up or that way up with no middle ground what so ever. Only the ceiling and floor were interchangeable. The walls stayed walls and the doors could be opened either way up. One of the doors opened to reveal to Simon a completely upside-down set of thudball players, which became the right way up as he entered the pitch and its counterfeit gravity well. There were fourteen people. Enough for seven a side and one ref, counting himself. Regrettably he had to wear a helmet because of his face being held together with bits of nylon. He felt like a right twit.


End file.
